Work Text:
People like Madame Mysteria weren’t the sort of people Slade Wilson liked to do business with. She was a meta who secreted a substance that turned anyone infected with it into an obedient drone, utterly open to suggestion. Of course, she had decided to use her ‘gift’ to set up a very successful human trafficking operation which was part of the reason Slade was meeting with her. He didn’t want to work for her but he wanted to know what each of the players on the board were like.
And Madame Mysteria… there was something about her that made Slade’s skin crawl. She had already amassed a fortune, no doubt from a series of mind-controlled husbands, and set up her own private compound where she was waited on hand and foot by a small army of handsome young men she had turned into drones. She was old enough to be their mother with an insidious air that told Slade she really saw her prisoners as something less than human.
Still, she had good taste. Every one of the young men in the collection was handsome with a lithe muscle that Slade wished he could see tensing with adrenaline and pleasure. She dressed them well too, in white loincloths with golden trims, golden collars around their necks. Some had been gardening when Slade had landed his helicopter on the edge of the estate and the sight of them glistening in the afternoon sun… Slade could see the appeal.
But, as willing as he was to roleplay all sorts of scenarios, he would never actually do anything with a partner who was not consenting.
Madame Mysteria had had a meal prepared for Slade in her grand dining room. She had gone hard on a Greek theme, her dining room ceiling held up by columns with statues of Greek gods staring down at them. Slade thought it was a little too much but made no comment as he sunk into the chair opposite her, wanting to ensure there was no danger of skin contact.
“Do you prefer to talk business before or after we eat?” Madame Mysteria asked.
“While,” Slade said.
He had no plan of eating – he wasn’t going to risk being exposed to her mind-controlling substance – and he figured that the distraction of talking about business was good enough. Madame Mysteria smiled widely. She clamped her hands.
“Apollo, Hades, please collect the food,” she said to people waiting just beyond the door.
As a reaction, Slade turned but didn’t catch sight of the young men before they headed off toward the kitchen.
He turned back to Madame Mysteria, seeing the lustful smile on the woman’s face.
“Named after Greek Gods,” Slade observed, eager to keep the conversation going.
“Yes. I have what I call my Pantheon. My twelve favourites. But those two… Those two are my most favourites,” Madame Mysteria said. “Hades is a new acquisition but I have already had a lot of people offering to buy him off me.”
“How did you acquire him?” Slade asked.
Madame Mysteria sighed, a sudden pout falling onto her features.
“Well, that’s actually why I called you. It’s easy enough to get a stream of vulnerable young people to dose with my elixir. The homeless. The outcast. People no one will notice or care about if they disappear. But for the more refined clientele, for my own personal collection, I need to have someone who can get their hands on products to order.”
Slade felt sick at the very idea. She wanted to pay him to abduct people so they could be made into mindless drones and shipped around the world to fill brothels and harvest drugs. That was not the sort of man he wanted to be, not the sort of man he had ever wanted to be.
“Hades,” Madame Mysteria continued, “approached my former head of acquisitions and convinced him to betray me. I caught them both, of course, and gave them my elixir. I don’t like to kill, of course, especially when my control is so strong. But I will admit I was a little vindictive when I sold my former head of acquisitions to one of those dreadful underground fighting rings. Hades, I had to keep, of course. You’ll understand when you see him. I’m still trying to come up with a good punishment for him but it’s hard. He’s truly like a god in mortal form, perfectly patterned with scars. If I whip him, if I do anything that might leave a mark… Well, I would be depriving myself.”
Normally Slade might have mustered up a slight smile at this point in the meeting, shown some sort of kinship to the new player that would get them to show their hand even further. But it was all Slade could do to keep his face level. He wanted nothing more than to shot the woman right there. He certainly was not at all tempted to work for her with what she had done to his potential predecessor.
But he had no idea what the woman might have done to her compound’s inhabitants. As far as he knew, they were under orders to tear anyone who harmed her apart. And Slade could get away from them – he was Deathstroke the Terminator after all – but he doubted it would be a bloodless escape. And everyone else in that compound was likely a victim of Madame Mysteria.
He decided to keep going, keep pressing on, wondering what was taking her servants so long in collecting the food.
“What is the pay?” he asked.
“Depends on who you are acquiring,” Madame Mysteria remarked. “It averages $500,000 but I’ve gone as high as $2million for some choice products. One of my pantheon was a minor prince.”
“And are there other…?” Slade asked as just two figures moved into the room with plates.
Immediately Slade stared. Both young men had clearly been marked out as more important than those working in the gardens. They wore the loincloths and collars of their fellow prisoners but had golden cuffs around their ankles and wrists.
The blond one, no doubt Apollo, was handsome and lean with a soft jaw and brilliant green eyes. His body was flawless, perfectly toned with not a freckle, dimple or hair that didn’t seem meticulously placed. He took Slade his plate and the assassin didn’t spare him another look.
Because Hades was on the other side of the table. Hades… Better known as Dick Grayson.
There was something startling about seeing Dick’s eyes shining so brightly and yet so unfocused at the same time. There was something horrific about the way he didn’t even offer Slade a glance. At any other time, Slade would have been rejoicing. He would have all but tackled the young vigilante into bed, used those golden cuffs to secure the squirming young man and break him into pleading, begging, whimpering pieces over and over again. They’d spent a night like that together just shy of three weeks ago, Dick saying he needed to work out some tension before he went on a mission.
This had been his mission.
“Other what?” Madame Mysteria asked, not looking back at Slade.
Dick placed the plate before her and sunk down to his knees at the woman’s side. She carded a hand through his hair before picking up a goblet from the table and gently bringing it to his lips. He drank slowly, eyes never wavering.
“Perks,” Slade finished.
His eyes shifted onto Apollo, aware he had been staring. The young man had slipped expectantly to his knees beside Slade. Slade passed him the goblet but the young man didn’t drink. He merely held it as if waiting for an instruction.
“Whatever do you mean?” Madame Mysteria asked with the voice of someone who very much knew what Slade meant.
She lifted the goblet away from Dick’s lips and drank herself. With her free hand, she hooked a finger beneath Dick’s chin and angled his head back before tracing her fingers along the top of his collar.
“Do I get to… play with any of your drones?”
“You mean Hades?” Madame Mysteria asked.
Slade tried to keep his face neutral but the woman merely smiled.
“Don’t be coy. You’ve barely been able to keep your eyes off him since he came in. Apollo, leave us. Hades…”
She rested a hand on Dick’s cheek. Apollo had already peeled from the room, leaving Dick as the sole centrepiece.
“Tease our guest for me.”
There was a change that came over Dick. For a moment Slade was sure that the spell had been broken and Dick had escaped the woman’s thrall. He watched as Dick rose, walking more with his natural rhythm, and circled the table in taunting, precise movements.
Slade had seen the display a few dozen times and knew that it always ended with Dick and him going at it relentlessly. Only this time he couldn’t. He just had to stay strong, break the spell and then maybe Dick would reward him, when the young vigilante would fully consent, by letting himself be dressed up in the same clothes and worked until Slade was satisfied.
“Mr Wilson,” Dick all but purred.
If he was not supposed to know Slade’s name, Madame Mysteria didn’t pick up on the mistake. She just watched lustily.
Dick dipped a finger into Slade’s wine and sucked it clean, eyes hooded, looking like his own mind was conjuring up the same dirty images that Slade’s own was filling with.
Unsure whether it was because he couldn’t resist or simply because he wanted Dick close when he was in such a vulnerable state, Slade pulled the young vigilante onto his lap. He held him there even as Dick gave a strangled gasp and put a hand to his neck, forcing his head back and compressing his windpipe just enough to cause a jolt of adrenaline. Slade wished that it would be enough to break Madame Mysteria’s hold but the young man instead let a needy whine slip out over his lips.
Slade glanced toward Madame Mysteria, seeing her attention was fixed on the two of them. Slade realised if he was going to get to keep Dick somewhere he could watch over him, he was going to need to play along.
“I’ve been missing you in my bed, Dick,” Slade whispered, wanting to keep their previous connection a secret. “You didn’t need to do this to get my attention.”
Dick squirmed in his lap, enough that Slade could feel himself growing ever harder. Slade ignored the sensation the best he could, turning to Madame Mysteria.
“Perhaps he could be part of our arrangement. When you’ve acquired someone new for me, Hades is yours for a night. Provided, of course, I get to watch.”
“Watch?” Slade questioned.
“You’re a handsome man,” Madame Mysteria said with a shrug. “And clearly you can control him. In fact, to sweeten the deal, if you agree to work for me, you can spend some time with him now.”
Slade paused, as if considering the deal. Dick turned to him, lips slightly parted. It was an invitation to slip his thumb in and Slade did just that, the young man immediately sucking on it enthusiastically. Slade sighed.
“Do you know who he really is?” he asked.
He needed to know how badly Dick had slipped up, if Madame Mysteria knew what Nightwing looked like under the mask. If she did, Slade was going to have to kill her. There was nothing else he could do.
“Some spy. I’ll admit I haven’t asked his name. It doesn’t matter and no one has come looking for him yet. I’m honestly a little surprised about that. When I got my hands on him, he’d clearly been someone’s personal whore. Bites on his skin, practically a belt of bruises from his waist being grabbed. But I reckon he had probably been using his body to bring your predecessor onto his side.”
Slade had always gotten a small thrill from when someone saw the marks he left on Dick. The fact that Madame Mysteria had seen so obvious signs only left him more wound up. He wanted nothing more than to slam Dick into the table and have his way with him. But he had to restrain himself.
“And is there any way your spell can be broken? The last thing I need is for one of your drones to wake up and alert the police to this operation.”
“Oh no. No one has worked that out yet.”
Madame Mysteria stood.
“You make it sound like you are willing to join. It is wonderful news. I will have Apollo prepare Hades for pleasuring you while…”
Slade held Dick closer, possessively. He was not about to let the young man out of his sight.
“I didn’t agree,” Slade said. “You said no one has worked out how to break your spell, meaning there is a way. Break it on Hades. I want to see how easy it would be to get someone back under control if they go get free.”
“They are disorientated when they wake up,” Madame Mysteria said. “You don’t need…”
“I do,” Slade replied. “I do, or no deal. And if I am not willing to work with you, no one else will.”
It was a gamble. There were plenty of others who were less moral and more willing to accept risk who would love a job like it. A few might even want the deal he had with Madame Mysteria over getting to have fun with ‘Hades’. But she was new to the game and Slade knew it. He had to hope that she didn’t know the criminal underworld as well as he did, that she imagined Deathstroke had that level of influence.
“Fine,” Madame Mysteria said. “Apollo, bring me the chest on my dresser.”
Apollo had barely entered the room to hear the instructions and then soon he was leaving again. Dick gave a needy whine and arched his back into Slade. Slade knew it was teasing, just as Madame Mysteria had ordered but he couldn’t resist. He caught the skin of Dick’s neck between his teeth and nipped and sucked until he was sure there would be a mark. All the while the acrobat was pushing back into him.
“You truly do know how to work him,” Madame Mysteria praised, her voice almost breathless.
“You said that he was a personal whore before you got your hands on him. They’re all the same.”
Apollo reappeared, holding the chest. He passed it to Madame Mysteria who took it and pulled a key from a string around her neck. Unlocking the chest, she pulled out a small pill.
“I synthesised an antidote just in case,” she said.
She circled the table, approaching Dick and Slade. Slade watched as she pushed the pill to Dick’s lips and slowly slid it in, the young man swallowing immediately.
“Does he need to be restrained?” Slade asked.
“Of course not,” Madame Mysteria said. “He will be disoriented like I said. And I’ll simply put him back into a trance the moment he starts to recover.”
Slade watched as Dick’s blue eyes slipped closed. All tension in his body drained away, before coming back in a strange flinching like a wave of nausea had just passed through him. He blinked, looking around.
“What? Where… I…”
He turned to look at the owner of the lap he was sitting on.
“Slade?” he croaked out.
In that moment, Madame Mysteria realised something was wrong.
“You know him!” she gasped.
Immediately she reached out for Dick but Slade bodily threw the young man off to the side, getting him out of the woman’s grasp. The assassin immediately stood, reaching for his belt and producing a taser. He jabbed it into the woman’s side, watching as she convulsed before collapsing to the floor before him. Slade hurried over to Dick who was battling to his feet, gripping the side of the table.
“Slade, what’s going on?” he managed.
“Grab that chest. And give one of the pills inside to every young man you see. I’m going to deal with our host.”
Dick unsteadily made his way toward the chest, edging around the side of Apollo like he was an animal waiting to spring.
“Don’t kill her,” Dick said as Slade turned back to Madame Mysteria.
“She deserves it,” Slade replied.
“If she’s the woman I was working to take down, I need her to dismantle her operation.”
Slade sighed.
“You’re such a saint, Nightwing.”
Slade wasn’t the sort of person who met up for coffee to talk about feelings. Dick knew that. He had come to accept it. Slade’s way of checking up with a person was watching them through the windows of their apartment and he let Dick catch him doing it so that the young man knew that he cared about him in a deeper way than just wanting to bed him.
It took two weeks for since they had dismantled Madame Mysteria’s operation for Dick to join him on the rooftop, making it clear he was ready to talk again.
“We should set a fee,” Slade said as he heard the almost soundless footsteps of Nightwing moving across the roof. “I save you, you do something for me.”
“I thought I got saved for free because we’re sleeping together,” Nightwing said in a teasing voice.
“You’ve used up your free passes,” Slade replied.
“I figured I had,” Dick sighed. “What’s the fee then? I mean, there’s little that I’m not willing to do for you without a debt hanging over my head.”
Slade paused, his eye playing over the Bludhaven skyline.
“Photos. Videos. You putting on a show for me to get off on while you’re off with the other heroes.”
“Done,” Nightwing said. “How many?”
“Ten photos or one video per rescue,” Slade told him. “But depraved. They’re for my pleasure, not so you can show off.”
“Depraved. Got it.”
A silence descended between them, one that said the deal was struck.
“Quiet night,” Nightwing remarked after a moment.
Slade agreed.
“Perhaps you could take the first ten photographs yourself,” Nightwing said. “You know, show me the sort of depraved you’re looking for.”